Come Walk With Me

Four years ago, my husband and I purchased ourselves a little 'unique fixer-upper opportunity' that happens to be located on the side of a mountain. We've had a love/hate relationship with our house, but the location continues to stun us daily with it's beauty. Since we are a bit of a distance from civilization, going anywhere is a commitment and going to the gym is a luxury I can no longer afford.

There does exist a road that goes from my house over the ridge and back down the other side of the mountain. It's 6.5 miles the short way (more winding passages exist) and the first 2 miles are all uphill. This summer, as I do every summer, I've committed to conquer the mountain. I want to walk to the top, at least, and be in good shape doing it.

(caution, sudden change of subject)

As I was thinking that I really need to buy myself a digital camera and stop borrowing my daughter's, I remembered that I actually DO own my very own camera. So when my son returned from college, I stole it back from him. I don't know how to use it, but I figured I should learn.

(And now we tie two disparate subjects together nicely.)

Here are some pix from today's hike. Ignore the date. (That's one of the features I do not know how to use.)


This is the last flat part of road for a while. It's narrow and badly paved, but paved it is.




And here is why we mention the paved road in the previous photo:



Yes, this is a real county road with houses on it. Yes, I live in New York and we have bad winters. Yes, I'm thankful that I don't have to navigate this road every day in winter just to get to my house.


When I made the commitment to conquer the mountain this summer, my first day's goal was to get to the first utility pole. See, I live at the end of a power company's territory. The first bit of my walk has no utility service. The neighboring utility company brings power up and over the mountain. Here's the much-celebrated pole:



Every day, I try to climb a little farther. I'd go from mailbox to mailbox, but they are pretty far apart. I'm up to the fourth utility pole. This is excitement in rural America.


I thought I'd maybe find some tunes to walk by, or maybe a book on my MP3 player. First walk: found the player but the battery was dead. Second walk: player was charged, but all the files had expired and I needed to log in to the music service and the library to refresh them. Third walk: realized that I walk on a one-lane road and hearing the cars (and getting out of their way) was a VERY good idea.

So what do I listen to while I'm walking? My own huffing and puffing for one. Random birds and animals (very cool). Whatever song happens to be stuck in my head. Today was "Boogie Shoes" (shoot me, please). Oh, and this:



Can you see the water down there? (I have to learn how to take pictures.) There is a stream that runs beside the road and I get to hear bubbling water. Cool, huh? This also runs beside my driveway, just under my bedroom window. Want to fall asleep to that every night? It's quite soothing.

So, I could tell you that we lose electricity all of the time. We have garage doors that are barely worthy of their name. Our windows fall out of the frame randomly (this is great fun). We live under the tree line, so no Direct TV (and the Steelers won this year!?!?!?). But the upside is ... I get to live here. I get to see this every day. Yep, buying this money pit was a good thing.